This was heartbreaking. We've been losing too many soldiers to silly accidents like this. At least I'm guess it was silly, we'll have to hope they give us some details on what actually happened to the aircraft.

Sounds like a pretty major mechanical failure if it went nose down so fast the pilot didn't even get a mayday off. =/

I really really hope it doesn't get traced back to maintenance oversight / neglect but I fear it'll end up being something of that nature. The only witness said he heard an explosion and spotted an engine on fire. But it would have had to lose control and/or control surfaces in order to nose dive so fast. Simply losing one engine would not bring down a Hercules.

The plane is to old and well known for there to be any surprise mechanical flaws left. So that leaves maintenance issues.